Steven Hillman with his 2 year old son Jack stand in their Long Beach home that was hit hard by Super Storm Sandy in October 2012. Photo: Dennisthephoto.com

Long Beach, Long Island, pictured here in November, was hit hard by wind, water and sand. (Doug Kuntz)

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Two weeks ago, I took a day off work so that my wife and I could attend an open forum at Long Beach City Hall. Representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, New York state and the City of Long Beach were on hand to answer questions and comments from home and business owners looking to repair or raise their Sandy-damaged homes. It was the second such meeting, with the first a few months back.

To say there was a pitchfork-and-torch mentality would be an understatement.

My neighbors, of whom I have seen very little over the past six months as we’ve all been turned into refugees, were fuming — and rightfully so.

They are no closer to getting back into their homes then they were after Sandy hit six months ago. To add insult to injury, the first 10 minutes of the meeting revealed our taxes would most certainly be going up, as well as our federally mandated flood insurance (currently $2,500 a year, it could soar as high as $9,500).

The meeting began with Jack Schnirman, the Long Beach city manager, who apparently couldn’t get off the mic quick enough. After a polyester greeting and some hollow words, he handed off to the FEMA guy and hit the sidelines. I was seated near him, and he rarely stopped texting and staring at his phone for the next two hours, hiding amongst other officials.

The FEMA guy was barraged with questions. What does “substantially damaged” mean? Can the inspections be trusted? When will aid money arrive? He didn’t have most of the answers, nor did he have a very warm disposition, and was quickly barked off the stage.

Enter the New York state reps. They too had few answers and the crowd got increasingly annoyed at what was beginning to look like an utter waste of time.

As we were getting ready to leave, I mentioned to my wife to take a gander around the room. The looks on the faces of so many people resembled what we have been seeing on each other’s faces every day for the last six months. It’s a panicked overwhelmed appearance, spotted with confusion, apprehension, fear, weariness, anger, not to mention the cavalcade of skepticism. And one big question:

How much longer can this go on?

GOVERNMENT SQUEEZE

The old adage, stuck between a rock and a hard place, has taken on new parameters for my family and myself.

We are captives of the federal, state and city governments, who as we all know have difficulty coming to definitive agreement on what color the sky is, much less the plethora of questions that abound for those of us living in low-lying areas.

For the rest of New York, it feels like Sandy is a faded memory. Transit is back to normal, the phones and electricity work, and politicians are patting themselves on the back for a job well done.

But in places like Staten Island, the Rockaways and Long Beach, Sandy remains an open wound. More than 1,000 households were displaced, and many of those people — like my family — are still living in rentals, in hotels, with family.

Some of us want to go back, but can’t. Some of us want to sell, but can’t. Why? Because in both cases, the government hasn’t made a decision.

We have regularly been besieged by friends and family asking what’s taking so long with the rebuilding process, but the answer is somewhat convoluted. The rules and regulations change daily, and if you don’t speak to the right people on a very regular basis, you’ll likely get left behind. And if you do speak to the right people on a very regular basis, you’ll likely get a different answer every day.

For example, FEMA wants our house raised 8 feet, Gov. Cuomo and the state of New York another 2 feet, for a total of 10 feet above the base flood elevation level. (If you don’t know what the base flood-elevation level of your home is, you must hire an architect at the cost of anywhere from $400 to $950.)

So people have begun to raise their homes to comply with these regulations.

For a home such as mine, this will cost about $100,000. If you had flood insurance, only up to $30,000 of that will be covered by a FEMA program. And only in increments as reimbursement after the homeowner pays the company doing the lifting upfront.

But here’s the kick in the pants. If you raise your home now, you forfeit any chance of receiving state aid in the future. Since New York hasn’t decided how to divvy up the pie just yet, no work can be done.

When my wife and I spoke to a contractor about raising the home, he said it’s a much better job before the house is rebuilt. My floor and walls are gone, ripped up because of the flood. But if I replace them now and raise the house later, the doorways may be uneven, there may be cracks in the sheetrock seams, the repair work to the interior of the house damaged.

So, we’re stuck until New York decides what it is going to do. When that’s going to be is anyone’s guess. But based on all the things I hear about Albany, it’s frightening to imagine how long this all might take.

That’s not even the scariest part. If we chose to leave our home at the level it is now, our insurance premium could skyrocket as much as $7,000 a year. And that’s just flood insurance, not homeowners, which is almost $300 a month. We could be paying $1,100 a month for insurance, completely unsustainable for a $442,000 home.

It’s the ultimate Catch-22. Raise now and avoid the insurance hit, then get no help from the state. Or we can rebuild now and wait for the state to get its act together and then lift the home.

BUYOUT? WHAT BUYOUT?

Why rebuild at all? Why not have the state buy the home, as Cuomo keeps talking about.

“I’m not saying anybody should sell, but you should think about it. And if you want to sell, we’ll have an option,” said Cuomo at the end of January.

But when, exactly, is the governor going to make this offer? Next week? Next month? Next year? The Long Beach Buildings department tells me people are still waiting for state funds for Hurricane Irene, which hit in August 2011.

And how much would the offer be for? Originally, Cuomo said pre-storm value would be paid. That has now changed to pre-storm in the main flood zone, Zone V, post-storm if in any other flood zone. When and if the offer does come, meanwhile, we might be blocked from accepting it.

Three factors for a buyout are needed: willing homeowner (we certainly are!), willing state (Cuomo is on board) and willing City of Long Beach.

City of Long Beach elected officials have flat out said they are not interested.

The city would lose the tax revenue from every home sold, since the agreement would be to never build on the land again. So what incentive do they have to go along with it?

All right, so forget about the bailout. Just sell the house to someone who wants a short walk to the beach and a lovely view of Reynolds Channel.

The answer to this one is quite simple: The numbers don’t add up. We have gotten an estimated value of what our home would sell for in its current condition, plus our insurance settlements — both from my homeowners policy and the flood insurance — and the generous grant News Corp. gave me, and it still comes in just under $225,000, below what we paid for the house nearly 10 years ago.

It is an option, I suppose, but a six-figure loss does not look appealing.

The rules and regulations change so fast it’s nearly impossible to keep up. The state blames the town and the town blames the state and they both blame the Congress.

They don’t seem to understand that the residents of Long Beach aren’t looking for someone to yell at or scapegoat. We are trying to get back into our homes.

We’ve been waiting for six months — I worry it’s going to go on for six years.

Steven Hillman is a news editor for The Post. He lives in Long Beach with his wife, Ginger, and children, Crystal, 17, and Jack, 2; shillman@nypost.com